Project DOCC offers holistic approach to patient care
Project DOCC offers holistic approach to patient care
Treating a patient as a person with a life outside the hospital or doctor’s office seems like something all physicians should be doing. But Cathy A. Stevens, MD, associate professor of pediatrics at TC Thompson Children’s Hospital in Chattanooga, TN, admits that many physicians look at patients as the illness or condition they present with.
"There is a whole person you have to treat who has a family and a life," she says. "This isn’t just a seizure or a tube feeder. I think we have to learn that what we do impacts them."
That was one of the attractions of Project DOCC (see related story, p. 123.), a residency training program that gives new physicians a real understanding of the challenges that affect patients with chronic conditions and their families every day. In the past, physicians would see the family of a tube-feeding patient and explain how the mechanism works and how to change it every two hours, says Stevens. But that physician may not have realized that the mother had two other small children and a job, and was at her wits’ end. Without that knowledge, she continues, how effective can you really be in treating the patient?
"It should be an integral part of residency training to look at a patient as a whole person with a life and a family. This is the best time to do it — a time when you can mold their actions, their thoughts, and the way they treat patients," she says.
As physician liaison for the program at TC Thompson, much of the work for Stevens came at the start of the program. "You have to go to the seminar, learn how the program works. But then it’s just a matter of which resident goes to what home when; who will do the pre- and post-interview sessions with them; and overseeing the whole thing. It really isn’t a lot of work."
Although only one batch of residents has completed the program, Stevens thinks it will pay off for patients and their families. "As these students graduate and go on into practice, I really think that you will see a change in the way they and their partners practice medicine. We will listen more to parents, rather than see something broken, fix it, and send them on. They will stop and think about the other side of the coin, about what happens after they leave your office."
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